Nick Griffin speaks in Italy alongside NPD leader

Udo Voigt – NPD leader and newly elected MEP – addresses a meeting of European nationalists in Milan on December 20th: Nick Griffin was on the platform (second left), his old comrade Roberto Fiore (far right) organised the event.

Despite struggling to build a new British nationalist movement, following the bloody purge earlier this year leading first to his losing control of the BNP and then to the expulsion of his entire faction from the party, Nick Griffin was an honoured guest and speaker at a pan-European conference of nationalists held in Italy a few days before Christmas.

The event launched an “Alliance for Peace and Freedom” and was organised by Griffin’s old comrade Roberto Fiore, leader of Italian nationalist party Forza Nuova.

Fellow speakers included Udo Voigt, leader of the German nationalist party NPD, who was elected to the European Parliament earlier this year; and Stefan Jacobsson, leader of a radical Swedish nationalist movement called Party of the Swedes.

Within Italy the most significant news was the participation of Maria Teresa Baldini, an elected regional councillor previously associated with the Lega Nord.

Strangely the Italian media billed Griffin as “President of the British National Party” – despite his having been forced out of that party months ago. Griffin’s former ally (now bitter enemy) Pat Harrington, who masterminded this year’s leadership coup inside the BNP, has written a comment on the Searchlight website making the correct (if waspish) point:

“I don’t believe anyone from the British National Party was there. The confusion on this point comes from the fact that the former BNP Chairman, Nick Griffin, attended. He was expelled from the BNP and now runs his own small group as I’m sure you know.”